Orofino Mine in January

Excuse the crappy photos.

It was a cold dark day when I turned off the dirt road and followed the trail down into the woods.

Not a day for photography, and not weather that summons young folk to recreate with libations at a local mine.

But a good day for a codger and his dog to explore.

I've walked past this trail at least 100 times, noticed the beer cans, and knew the Orofino mine was near.

And last week I could have sworn someone was baking bread down there. Now I know it was just another smell emanating from under the hood of my truck.

The faux bread smell peeked my interest. Could someone be camping at the mine?

I followed the trail beside a seasonal creek, and then I heard the clean rush of water -- another creek was sluicing down a trench to my left.

Fred led the way, and there it was -- the Orofino Mine.

No sleeping bears in there, not that the gate would keep them out.

Check it out in the East Paradise topo map, and you see that the mine (Y) actually goes under Powerhouse road.

It seems to have a vertical shaft (the square symbol) above the road, but the shaft is hidden in a patch of Himalayan blackberry.

The mine looks relatively safe. None of the collapsing walls I found in the Indian Spring Mine near by.

It will be a while before the road collapses into the subterranean void below.

Indian Spring Mine--an excursion

You can't miss it when you are this close. 

But  you won't know you have arrived a little further down the creek.  

The old mine is pretty well overgrown these days, but cans, broken china, cans and old bottles   date it back to its heyday from 1860 to the 90s, with aftershocks of activity until the 1930s.  

There was sporadic digging after WWII, and at some point in time someone installed a gate limiting access. Some law abiding citizens tore it down and now it lies near the entrance.   

Indian Spring Mine is a drift mine, and when DC and his son Brent and I visited last Friday, crystal clear cold water debouched from the tunnel. 

Directly beneath the channel of Indian Spring itself the tunnel taps into bedrock at a slight incline. 

Tree roots hang in the entrance, and there are a couple of recently collapsed walls.

We weren't prepared to wade into its depths, and saw no signs of bats. 

 

After exploring the mine itself, we followed Indian Spring to a lava cap where water trickled into the channel. 

This rather puny flow disappears in the ground nearby, but apparently joins the deeper flow that emerges from the mine. 

This is a year round source of water, but there is enough human traffic to make it a security risk for camera trapping.  A pity.  

[Thanks to D.C.-- a fellow GPSer, for suggesting the outing, and for the use of the last photo.]